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Oliver Simmons
Oliver Simmons (born 21st September 1947, Quartztown) is a Southern Arc Islands former footballer and football coach. He both played for and coached the Southern Arc Islands national football team. He played mainly as a midfielder. Simmons began his footballing career in 1968 at FC Arc City. He soon became an important player there, and was the team captain for most of the 1971 season before being sold in 1972 to the Canadian fellow North American Soccer League team Montreal Olympique. Montreal Olympique folded at the end of the 1973 season; thus, for the 1974 season, Simmons was transferred to the Baltimore Comets. When the Comets moved to San Diego in 1976 to become the San Diego Jaws, Simmons did not move with them, and instead returned to FC Arc City, where he would spend the remainder of his playing career, retiring at the end of the 1978 season at the age of 31. Simmons was included in the inaugural squad of the Southern Arc Islands national football team in August 1977 and played with them until his retirement in late 1978. After retiring from playing football, Simmons was appointed as assistant manager of FC Arc City in 1979. The next season, he was promoted to manager/head coach. As manager of FC Arc City, he became known for pioneering an unusual but successful formation known as the "attacking carousel". This formation originated when, in early 1980, Simmons noticed that FC Arc City had a large amount of good forwards/attacking players - more than could be fit in any standard squad, in fact - but relatively few good defenders. He initially urged the club administration to make transfers to address this imbalance, but when they refused to do so, Simmons devised a special formation to utilise the club's squad to its maximum potential. This new formation, nicknamed the "attacking carousel", was inspired by the Total Football tactics used by Dutch teams in the 1970's. The attacking carousel usually featured four to six forwards in the starting eleven rather than the usual two or three; these forwards would actually play in a fluid role somewhere between a midfielder and a forward, and individual players would often swap positions or wings during a game, leading to the "carousel" nickname. This experimental tactic proved hugely successful, as FC Arc City utterly dominated the Southern Arc Islands Football League, winning it four times in a row under Simmons' management, from 1980 to 1983. In mid-1980, Simmons was also appointed as the manager of the Southern Arc Islands national football team, where he utilised a similar attacking carousel as he had at FC Arc City, featuring a lot of the same players as well. At the end of the 1983 season, he resigned as manager of FC Arc City in order to focus on coaching the national team; the club administration sold off a lot of the famous players from the attacking carousel soon after and returned to more conventional formations, but this led to a drop in performances despite the new transfers the club was able to afford due to selling off the famous players; this in turn led to the club's financial problems and eventual dissolution in 1987. Simmons continued to be the manager of the national team until 1987, by which time numerous players in his attacking carousel were being affected by aging. Managing other teams, Simmons continued to use the attacking carousel formation, though not as frequently or successfully as he had with FC Arc City or the national team; other managers, including later managers of the national team, occasionally used and continue to use formations similar to Simmons' attacking carousel, to varying degrees of success. After leaving the national team, Simmons coached Silver Harbour FC from 1988 to 1992, leading them to First Division titles in 1989 and 1991. He then became the manager of Brunanter club Grijzestad University S.C. from 1993 to 1998, leading them to their first promotion to the Brunanter First League as well as their first Johan II Cup title, though he resigned after the team was relegated again. He was the manager of FC Liedho from 1999 to 2000, winning the First Division in 1999, and then FC Harbour from 2001 to 2004. He subsequently coached the Southern Arc Islands national under-20 football team from 2005 to 2007, FC Westpoint from 2008 to 2009 and Quartz Forest FC from 2010 until the end of the 2013 season, at which point he retired from coaching aged 66. The Southern Arc Islands Association of Football Clubs' award for the best manager of a season has since 1994 been named the Oliver Simmons Award in his honour. Category:Living people Category:Footballers Category:Southern Arc Islands national football team Category:FC Arc City Category:FC Liedho Category:FC Harbour Category:Quartz Forest FC Category:Silver Harbour FC Category:Football coaches Category:1947 births